


What's Clean Is Pure

by aflaminghalo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Lil bit of tenderness, Missing Scene, No Beta, episode 3 missing scene, ficlett, foot washing, lil bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflaminghalo/pseuds/aflaminghalo
Summary: After the bomb drops, Aziraphale tries to work through his feelings about Crowley on Crowley.A missing scene for Episode 3.





	What's Clean Is Pure

**********

The streets haven’t been lit at night for nearly two years now, and in the darkness of the car the screams and sirens of the world ending seem very far away.

Crowley chats continuously, distractedly, giving Aziraphale an abridged account of the last twenty years while he concentrates on operating his machine. Aziraphale alternates between staring at his hands as they clutch the handle of the Gladstone bag full of his books, and staring at Crowley. He’s felt for a long while now, that he has a good idea of who the demon is, forgive him, at heart. In the moments after the bomb fell, Aziraphale would swear that he saw everything lit up - like a flare sent up over the killing fields of the last conflict, and Crowley lit again as though by Heaven; all his dark places bleached with light and every inch of him illuminated and known and beautiful. 

But now between the shadows as they shift across his face, and the solid blackness of his glasses, and the way Aziraphale’s stomach dropped when they touched, he knows something has changed, but not what he’s meant to do with it. 

The drive from the Church to his shop seems to take all the time and no time. And when Crowley parks up, Aziraphale lets him walk around the bonnet to open the passenger door. 

When they reach the shop door, he steps back and lets Crowley pass in ahead of him. 

Inside, the shop is bright and warm inside, with black-out curtains over the windows that will keep the light in better than a brick wall. It feels just as private, just as removed as the car – a pocket cut in reality just for them. In here it's easy to believe there is no war.

“Do make yourself at home, dear.” He calls, moving through the stacks to what he knows he has lying around somewhere. There’s a pleasure, sometimes a necessity, when things are rearranging themselves and foundations aren’t certain, to reach back as far as you can to grasp something familiar. To find the actions that can be solid when the words are still waiting to take form. 

Crowley’s sprawled out on the sofa when Aziraphale returns, raising an amused eyebrow over the rim of his glasses as he sits up straight. “Now that takes me back.” 

“True hospitality never goes out of style, Anthony.” It feels daring to name the demon in that way, and he kneels, placing the basin on the ground between them. He covers his knees with the towel he had draped over his shoulder and gestures downwards. “Shoes, Crowley, or am I to do that as well?” 

Crowley hesitates, just for a second, before his shoes and socks are miraculously set to the side of them. He puts his feet in the basin, wiggling his toes in the water, and pulls the leg of his trousers up. “Feels a bit like a trip to the seaside this. All I need’s a hankie for my head and a bag of chips.” 

“You eat chips?” For a stupid moment Aziraphale wonders if that’s the change he can feel between them. 

“Well, no. But I could get you some.” 

Aziraphale finishes the job Crowley started and tucks the hem of his trousers up properly, feeling how closely the demon is observing him, even as he warms to his seaside fantasy. 

“We could go to Blackpool. Eat some cockles. Walk the mile. See the Lights. I mean, not now, in the summer when it’s nice.” 

“If the lights ever come back on again.” He picks one of Crowley’s feet from the water and uses his hand to pour more over it, making sure every inch of skin is coated – top, sole, between his skinny toes. 

“Oh I can handle that, no problem.” 

There’s a note in Crowley’s voice, and it’s incredibly familiar – almost hopeful, almost tender. Aziraphale’s aware, suddenly, of how often Crowley uses it with him, of how often he’s written it off as demonic wiles, or his own treacherous heart wanting. Now, he can hear the way their fingers touched when Crowley handed him the bag of books, and the limp he’s pretending isn’t there.

“Well, I’m sure you had more than a little to do with it in the first place.” He pulls Crowley’s foot onto the towel in his lap and begins to pat it dry. “Did it hurt very badly?” 

“What, Blackpool?” Crowley gasps as Aziraphale accidentally on purpose squeezes the flesh just beneath his big toe a little too tightly. “Nah, hardly felt it. Just woke up this morning and thought, you know what, I really feel like dancing down the aisle tonight.” He runs his tie through his fingers for a few seconds, settling into seriousness. “Besides, I’ve had worse. And it was worth it.” 

“I’m sure you’ll get a very nice commendation for it.” Aziraphale lets go of Crowley’s foot and reaches for the other one. 

“Oh turning a Church into rubble barely even registers these days. I’d need a full congregation of grannies, a couple of children’s choirs, and a really good collection for the poor in there to get a look in.” 

Aziraphale stares at his hands, at the water. At the truth. At the ridiculous way he, an Angel of the Lord, has chosen to debase himself; washing a demons feet like – its shock. It has to be. From this evening, from the bomb, from the Nazi’s, and his own pompous idiocy. He jerks back, nearly spilling water all over the floor. But it’s just a gentle finger tracing his temple, and then the hair above his ears. 

“Angel, I know how much you hate paperwork.” 

To Aziraphale’s horror he can feel tears welling in his eyes and wills them back. “You can’t just throw yourself in discorporation’s way-!” Crowley’s fingers stay gentle in his hair until he’s almost overcome with the urge to lean forward and rest his head against Crowley’s knee. 

And then he does. “Please stay out of Churches Crowley.” 

Crowley, ever flexible, leans down and presses his head to Aziraphale’s. “Even if you’re there to protect me?” He pulls back and flexes his foot where it still lies in Aziraphale’s lap. “So, you going to do the rest of me or what?” 

Aziraphale purses his lips – less a response, more a reflex to Crowley’s gift of destroying a moment that’s about to get heavier than they can bear. “I don’t know that I have the time or the towels for that.” He presses his palm over the top of Crowley’s thin foot, feeling the last of the healing he’s been working in, feeling the bones and the tendons and their deceptive fragility. “But maybe we could make a start,” He adds as Crowley scowls. “The all clear hasn’t sounded yet. I’m sure it won’t for a while.”


End file.
